Fans of Jesus?

Last week I wrote about commitment and the Christian life. Discipleship, the following of Jesus Christ in every aspect of one’s life – private and public – is the Biblical call of all Christians. In fact, if you review the official documents or liturgies of virtually every Christian denomination you will find this serious commitment spelled out, sometimes in significant detail, such as in the baptismal vows of the Episcopal Church.  

Of course, we know that many Christians are not committed to their faith in any serious way. We also know in our own hearts that there are aspects of our own lives that are not in alignment with Christian teaching. No one has arrived at the destination of discipleship as long as they walk among the living. Yet there is clearly a difference between a person seeking to be a disciple and a person who has little interest in that level of commitment.

A disturbing realization I had one day was that in some aspects of my life I am striving to be a disciple, but in other aspects I’m really just a fan of Jesus (and more worrisome, seemly content for that to be so). In other words, while I admire Jesus’ own lifestyle and that of His followers over the centuries I’m not so sure I’m ready to do the same. I say, “yes, thank God for people like Francis of Assisi, or the many local saints I’ve know in my Christian life who give so sacrificially of their time, talent, and treasure,” but I’m not going to do that – not at that level – good for them!

I think all of us would do well to come to terms with the fact that often we are more fans of Jesus than we are followers. This recognition will help us to be more humble and less prone to judge others whose Christian commitment we believe is lacking. In addition, this recognition may awaken in us a need to repent and by the power of the Holy Spirit to surrender to Christ in deeper ways.

Committed Christian?

To be a Christian necessarily involves commitment. The first followers of Jesus understood this. They knew that following Christ would come at a cost. These early Christians, like those Christians persecuted today, knew from personal experience that faith in Jesus was a life altering affair. For those of us who grew up in the Church, the cost of Christian living often seems pretty cheap. Show up on Sundays, be a good person, and if you’re a parent make sure your kids get into Sunday school and youth group. For those who want to be more committed come extra hours of volunteer service, the sometimes heated controversies of local church politics (e.g. what color rug should we have in the parish hall, we can’t remove that so and so donated it, etc.), and for the truly heroic, service in the wider denomination, which often means death by meeting.

This Saturday, I will be presiding at the life profession service of one my parishioner’s who is a member of the Anglican Order of Preachers (Dominicans). The taking of religious vows has long been an option for Christians who wish to take their commitment to Christ and His Church seriously. Certainly, joining a religious order is not for the majority of Christians. Nor are those who are members of religious communities somehow innately superior to those who are not. The call to a formal and overtly sacramental life as a member of a religious order or as a priest is only for a few. This is because the ordinary work of the faith, the people through whom God will advance His Kingdom, are not supposed to be priests, religious, church staffers, but so called “ordinary” Christians.

The twenty year old college student and the sixty year old accountant are just as called by God as is the priest or the religious sister. The difference is merely in the details. All four persons are called to grow in prayer, in letting the Holy Spirit shape their characters, in witnessing to the Resurrection and in living out the mission of Jesus to love their neighbors as themselves.  The difference relates to their personalities, their gifts, and the particular role God has directed them to play in the Body of Christ. We must avoid the heretical notion that only some are called to be holy, while others are called to do the grunt work. To be holy, is to be Christ-like. To be holy, is to be fully human. This requires that we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, which honestly, often feels like grunt work. Some of the holiest persons in the world have achieved their closeness with God and their open heartedness toward man by seeking God in the grunt work (whether that was washing dishes, folding laundry, or tending the wounds of the sick and the dying).

The phrase so and so “is a committed Christian” is an unfortunate reflection on the state of Christianity today. By all Biblical standards shouldn’t such a phrase be redundant?

Does God Attend Church? Re-Thinking Where Faith Should Be Lived, part 5

The Domestic Church is the Real Church

When we think about the basic unit of society, we inevitably think of the family. Of course, the nature of what defines a family is rapidly shifting and re-arranging itself in our society. I should add that the definition of family has been challenged and re-arranged several times over the centuries and even today takes on many different shapes depending on which culture and which individual family one is looking at. Yet, regardless of the definition we use or would prefer to use it can be agreed that family life has an incredible impact on individuals: their worldview, their future health, their future relationships, etc. etc. etc.

This is just as true when it comes to matters of faith. A great loss in many parts of North American Christianity is the loss of what I will call the domestic church, this meaning the vibrant union of Christian faith with ordinary family life. This means the development and practice of rituals, customs and family life patterns that intersect with Christian faith. Many evangelical Christians still practice family devotions, which would be one example of this.

But I’m thinking especially about the Christian calendar: the annual cycle of feasts and observances that is meant not only for worship gatherings but for Christians to observe at home as well. Many countries with Christian heritages have wonderful customs and traditions related to this calendar such as special cakes for Epiphany, eating by candlelight during Advent, the blessing of the home annually by the parish priest, etc.

We have forgotten in a real sense how to evangelize and socialize our children, grandchildren, godchildren, nieces and nephews into the faith. Somehow we’ve been led to believe that if we can take them to worship – a one hour event- once a week then they will somehow learn to live the Christian life. It takes more than weekly attendance at worship and participation in some educational program to introduce someone to the Christian life, the best way to do that is by experience living that life.

I believe Church leaders, lay and ordained, need to bend over backwards to find ways to encourage the observance of the faith at home. This will usually mean having to teach adults first, who will then teach their children. Some good resources on these topics can be found here from an Evangelical perspective, here from a Catholic perspective, and here from a Protestant perspective.

How can we begin this mammoth task?

(I want to add a disclaimer here: my statements are not meant to be accusatory toward parents. In fact, I think it is people like me who are in large part to blame for this situation, as we --Christian pastors and teachers -- have so often failed to equip families with the tools they need to observe the faith at home).

Does God Attend Church? Re-Thinking Where Faith Should Be Lived, part 4

Killing the Minister

One of the reasons that North American Christians have so frequently limited Christian commitment and faith to church gatherings is because of a concept, a concept I will refer to as “the minister.” In many Christian traditions there is in fact an individual who is referred to as “the minister.” This concept is deadly to a lifestyle sense of Christianity. I am not against the concept of ministers or even a concept of ordained ministers who have a special -- but not better -- role in the Body of Christ (i.e. that is a sacramental role).

What I am against is the concept that the essential ministry and mission of the Church is carried out principally, almost entirely, by one man (Though lately, thankfully, in many mainline denominations we could also say by one woman). Of course, we know this doesn’t literally (usually!) mean one man or woman, but that one person does the significant work while others assist. The rise of specialization in our society in the modern era has not helped this perception either. In age of certifications, advance degrees and specialized training courses, people are often led to believe that they can’t even breathe without having the proper credentials, certifying they have been trained by the experts (whose own breathing status is, in many peoples’ opinion, quite questionable).

Every Christian is called to “minister” in the sense of serving others in Christ’s name; in the sense of advancing the Kingdom of God by how they live and how they refuse to live; in the sense of passing on the faith to the next generation (their kids, but others as well); and so on. Yes, some are called to a particular role that supports this general calling of all Christians, that supports the gathered life of the Church, but the gathering ministers (bishops, priests, pastors, church staff, etc.) must always remember they are in the business of equipping and supporting other Christians for discipleship, ministry and mission in their daily lives. No one person or even special group of persons can accomplish the work of the Body of Christ all by themselves; it’s a team effort, through and through.

Growing up I had an interim pastor who was a strong proponent of the ministry of all Christians, especially the laity. Her notice in the bulletin (more typical now) “Ministers: The People of Saint Peters” was not met with universal acclaim.  Not only is this shift from a ministerial person to a ministerial congregation often difficult for the laity to make, it is also often very difficult for clergy to make (most of us were trained to be lone rangers, see here for example). Both groups of people (and of course many protest at this division to begin with) have been trained to understand the Church’s life in a particular way, but we must ask, is this the Jesus way?

I am not an advocate for the removal of ordained ministry and my reasons are not entirely self-serving, so much as sacramental and Biblical (the priestly people of God need ministerial priests to remind them of who they are, priests are more symbols than mere functionaries, but I digress…for more of that click here, then click on May 22 "A priestly people").

How can we kill the minister and in the process bring life to a ministerial people of God? 

Does God Attend Church? Re-Thinking Where Faith Should Be Lived, part 3

From Services to Service

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we need to shift the principal focus and locus of Christian commitment away from Sunday morning to every morning, to every day, to life itself.  One way of breaking ground in this tough transition from event-based Christianity to lifestyle Christianity is to emphasize that attendance at worship services should lead to personal and familial acts of service. In other words, our worship of our God should lead to living for our God by “loving our neighbors as ourselves.”

 In fact, the basic shape of liturgical worship is organized around this premise.  The congregation – mostly scattered from each other during the week – gathers together to remember who they are,  to acknowledge the divine Other, and to be strengthened for service by Word and sacrament. Traditionally, it is the deacon, who is an icon of servant hood (more on that here), who dismisses with the congregation with a charge to “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”  Unfortunately, we could, to fit popular attitudes, change the dismissal to something like “Thank God it’s over!” or “See you next Sunday” or “Religious obligation done for this week” etc. 

Communal worship is where God’s people are gathered together and then sent out as individual and familial “lights of the world” into their neighborhoods, schools, and jobs, as well as their family and friendship circles. After a week of living for Christ most of us have had some failures, have taken a hit or two or experienced some amazing moments of grace. It is then high time to return from our scattered lives to be gathered once again as the people of God. This cycle of being gathered and being sent can be found in the life of Jesus and in many the great renewal movements of Church history (As an aside, Dominican spirituality is particularly modeled after this pattern of gathering and sending, contemplation and proclamation).  

What can we do in our worship services to highlight this reality?

-          You will find in some churches the following sign above their exit-ways, “You are now entering the mission field (see here).”  I imagine the effect of this sign depends in large part on the frequency of that congregation’s teaching, witness, and preaching regarding the call to Christian service.

-          There are some congregations that are canceling their regular services one or more times a year to engage in volunteerism and service in their community (see here). I think this is on the right track, though there are some subtle dangers in the cancelling of worship services for other (more?) "worthy causes.”

-          Perhaps a series of testimonies/faith stories from individual congregants that highlight the connection between worship and their service to others throughout the week

What ideas do you have?

Feast of the Ascension

Tomorrow is the feast of the Ascension. The Ascension is traditionally one of the high feast days of the Church year. However, it usually gets very little attention from the average Christian because it usually falls on a weekday. This celebration recalls that after spending forty days with the first Christians after His resurrection, Jesus ascended, that is returned to heaven. The first chapter of the book of Acts records this event and seems to imply that Jesus was literally lifted up into the sky.  Exactly how, being both God and man, Jesus returned to God the Father and the divine realm are mysteries we cannot explain. However, the importance of this event cannot be under estimated for our own lives as Christians.

The Ascension strikes several chords that ring important truths for Christians:

1. The Ascension completed Jesus’ passion further proving His messiah-ship. 

2. The Ascension is also the event through which Jesus’ humanity was taken into heaven, even into the Trinity itself. This is a great mystery, but also a great encouragement for us to know that God did not only create us, but that God understands us from our own human point of view. 

3. The Ascension completes Jesus’ victory over Satan. A victory He won at the cross and through His resurrection.  The final battle remains to be won by Jesus (at the second coming), but through the Cruxification, Resurrection, and Ascension Jesus has already won the war against Satan and “all the spiritual forces of wickedness which rebel against God” (BCP, 302).

Does God Attend Church? Re-Thinking Where Faith Should Be Lived, part 2

From Churchainity to Christianity

Faith is to be principally lived, witnessed to and developed in the context of everyday living. We have made the heretical mistake at times of implying that the heart of Christianity is the gathered Church, and more specifically, worship services. I believe that one of the reasons we see so many people falling away from the Church as they grow older is that for most, church was by and large, just a worship service, with maybe some additional activities added on: Sunday school, youth group, confirmation, and so on.

If a young woman or man grew up with the idea that the extent of their Christian life was attending church on Sunday, it will be relatively easy for them to drop that one hour a week. If they grew up in a nurturing, holistic Christian way of life, it will be harder (though certainly not impossible) for them to part with their faith so easily, because in this case, they are not dropping a Sunday, but a whole way of life.

This sort of talk is often interpreted as blaming parents for the failure of the Church, but that is not (in the vast majority of cases) what I am saying. The fault lies with Church leaders (yes, I include myself here) who have essentially allowed this view of churchainity to continue unchallenged. As church leaders we need to be sounding the bell that the primary domain for faith is life -  principally that part of life that takes place outside of the gathered Church: in the neighborhood, at school, at work, on vacation, whenever and wherever.

Part of this situation is largely no one’s fault, but is a result of a society that has moved beyond Christianity and no longer, as it once did to varying degrees, supported general Christian morals and values (for more on this see here). Christians will not find their faith commended or affirmed by prayers in schools, or Bible readings at public events, or by the morals of popular culture at large. This means we will be a minority and will have to grow more comfortable in being different from other people.  

To be faithful we need to spend far more time wrestling with the implications of Christian faith for living, living in practical and concrete situations by pondering questions like:

“What does it mean for me to be a Christian and a plumber?”
“I’ve got two job offers. Should my faith factor into my decision in anyway?”
“This divorce is a mess, how can I, should I, witness to my faith in the midst of all this?”

“We’re building a new house, how, if at all, should our Christian faith impact this project?”

“Should the home life of a Christian family look any different than the home life of a non-Christian family?”
“There is a controversy in the community over a new city ordinance, how should Christians respond, what if we disagree with each other?”
“What does our faith – Holy Scripture, Holy Tradition – have to say about this topic?”

Are these and similar questions being discussed and explored in depth in our churches? Do we even think such questions are integral parts of Christian discipleship?  

How can we begin to encourage a holistic Christian lifestyle again?